When a silver halide photographic light sensitive material is running-processed by an automatic processor, processing solutions each are deteriorated with increase of processing amounts. Deterioration of a developer is caused by the following factors; one is processing exhaustion in which a developer component reacts with a component of the photographic material to be deactivated and another one is air-oxidation exhaustion in which the pH of the developer is decreased as a result of absorption of carbon dioxide gas and developing agent is oxidized.
In the processing exhaustion move-mentioned, halide ions which are a constituent of a photographic material are dissolved-out into a developer and since iodide ions among the halide ions disssolved-out is replaced with bromide ions in silver bromide, there are, in the developer, accumulated bromide ions, which act as a developing retarder to exert a harmful effect on the developer.
In order to process stably a photographic material, it is necessary to exclude these deteriorating causes. The status of arts is such that, for the purpose of supplying an usable material and diluting an useless material concentration, a replenishing solution is supplied in a deteriorating-equivalent amount to keep photographic characteristics constant at a given level.
As a replenishing method of a processing solution, there have been so far proposed a number of techniques such as a method in which a processing solution is replenished continuously or intermittently in proportion to the processing amount to be recovered from exhaustion, as disclosed JP-A 55-126242 (the term "JP-A" means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), 55-126243, 57-195245, 57-195246, 57-195247, 60-104946, 62-238559 and 1-140156.
On the other hand, a photographic processing effluent has been discharged directly to the sewer, causing water-pollution in a river, lake and sea.
Recently, to decrease environmental pollution and simplifying processing work, there has been desired a decrease in a processing effluent amount; as embodiments thereof, reduction of the replenishing amount and regeneration of the processing effluent for reuse thereof are cited. Reduction of the developer replenishing amount resulted in an increase in sensitivity variation and processing temperature dependence when running-processed in an automatic processor and there occurred a problem such that photographic performance of high sensitivity could not be constantly achieved. Furthermore, there was caused a disadvantage such that silver image lost neutral black tone and was tinged with yellow-reddish color. Accordingly, it was practically impossible to reduce the replenishing amount.
Recently, as a technique for enhancement of developability, the use of tabular grains having a high aspect ratio and a small grain thickness to increase a covering power was disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,111,986, 4,434, 226, 4,413,053. While this technique led to an improvement in developability, there was a problem such that silver image tone became yellowish. The silver image tone, which has been well-known to be related unexceptionally with grain sizes and grain thicknesses was a matter to be considered in the case of a fine grain emulsion or tabular grain emulsion.
In the prior arts, a compound for toning developed silver, so-called toning agent has been employed. However, the use of this compound, which results in a remarkable decrease in sensitivity and developability of silver halide emulsion, cannot be applied to the present invention directed to high sensitivity and rapid processability.
There has been desired development of a highly sensitive and highly processable silver halide photographic material for radiography with processing stability and without producing an yellow-reddish silver image.